Tag Archives: allergies

Starting Feb. 1, every restaurant in Mass. will be forced to employ at least one “certified food protection manager.” Among the many duties to be assumed by the state-mandated food cops will be teaching fellow staff about “washing hands with soap and water and not hand sanitizer, and wiping food preparation areas, table tops and highchairs with commercial-strength cleaners.”

The most important task ahead, say proponents of the mandatory food safety initiative, is preventing patrons with food allergies from being poisoned or killed by their meals. The newly enlisted food protection managers will be responsible for personally serving every ‘special needs’ patron while teaching fellow servers and kitchen staff how to avoid contaminating plates with allergens.

“Restaurants are also encouraged to make simpler dishes by avoiding ingredients that hide allergens, like some mollusks and shellfish, barley and rye,” reports Boston’s WCVB-TV. “Currently, federal law does not require ‘minor’ allergens to be clearly listed on food labels.”

Got that? Thanks to the new law, chefs will be “encouraged” to alter their signature recipes that they’ve crafted for the vast majority of patrons who do not have food allergies.

Simply posting warnings on menus about potential food allergens contained in dishes would make too much sense and force those with food allergies to actually pay attention to what they choose to consume. This way, they can not be held responsible for getting sick — it’s the restaurants and chefs who will be blamed and sued for poisoning them. Talk about a ‘Happy Meal’ for trial lawyers!

J.Z. Zandi and his mom want the court to forbid high school students, including athletes, from using spray deodorants. That stinks!

Claiming his severe allergic reaction to “scented sprays” is life-threatening, a high school student is hoping a judge will force fellow students to stop wearing perfumes, colognes and even deodorants. Allergists say seventeen-year-old J.Z. Zandi’s condition is so rare that it smells fishy.

Zandi’s mother, Janice, said she is pursuing an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claim against Fort Wayne Community High Schools in Indiana. She said school officials refuse to take her son’s ‘doctor-verified’ condition seriously and still allow the use of “sprayed scents” in the building, despite J.Z.’s allegedly life-threatening condition.

“[T]his is not a true allergy,” Dr. Wesley Burkes, chief of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke University Medical Center told ABC News. Several allergists confirmed that they, too, had never heard of an actual allergy to sprayed scents.

“I know of no documentation that they cause actual primary allergic reactions,” said Dr. Miles Weinberger, director of Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonary Division at the University of Iowa. “It especially doesn’t sound credible for [an] allergy that various different odors, sprays, and scents have triggered the reaction.”

Zandi’s mother is trying to make the legal case that her son’s medically documented ‘allergic’ reaction to sprayed scents qualifies as a “disability” requiring special protection under the ADA aka “Americans with Back Pain Act.” Anything less than a total ban on sprayed scents in school, she says, puts her son’s life at risk.

“You have to help accommodate, help them attend school instead of banning altogether because there are too many products people are allergic to,” Burkes said. He noted that banning sprayed scents would “open up too many possible allergens to cumbersome restrictions.”

Weinberger contends that J.Z.’s problem just might be a psychosomatic illness. He said it is possible for “child to be having a psychological response with vocal cord dysfunction [instead of a true allergic reaction] … Never underestimate the power of mind-body interactions,” he warned.

What are your thoughts about this boy’s mysterious illness and his mother’s pursuit of legal action to prohibit hundreds of students from wearing perfumes, colognes and deodorants?

Is using the justice system to force the majority to accommodate a single student with a questionable ‘illness’ the new ‘American Way?’ If won, allergists warned ABC News that the Zandis’ case could open up “broader interpretation” of the ADA that civil libertarians say is “a coercive and fabulously expensive government venture into what ought to be private decision-making.”

If over-protective Nanny State bureaucrats get their way, the only place you’ll be able to eat peanuts during a flight will be on the airplane’s wings.

Peanut allergy activists are actively urging the Department of Transportation (DoT) to prohibit airlines from distributing those beloved little peanut bags to passengers because they say the nut dust could potentially kill them.

Anyone who has looked at the labels on snack foods these days — whether it’s pretzels or candy — has seen the warning, “This product was produced in a facility that processes nuts.” Now, if the DoT successfully ban peanuts from flights, it would seem to make sense that they’d also want to make sure passengers’ carry-on snacks are allergen-free, too.

In an Administration where anything is possible these days, we might be looking at an all-out ban on passengers eating any food on airplanes — unless it’s government approved or examined at the security gates. Hey, let’s create an Air Travel Peanut Allergy Czar!

While the DoT is contemplating a peanut ban on airlines, they have neglected to consider other modes of public transportation such as trains and buses where food is freely consumed by passengers. Oops! We shouldn’t be giving big government any ideas for expanding their Nanny State policies.

Well, that’s exactly the type of emotion-driven politics you can expect from near-sighted Nanny State bureaucrats who hear someone making a big fuss and just want to “plug the damn hole” without considering the bigger picture.